Stratics Veteran

The gold system and item systems in game will never be completely exploit proof. Other games have shown this with their own dupes; some of these games were designed much more recently with wisdom that couldn't have existed prior to early games like UO.

If they are developing a tracking system to catch cheaters, they probably wouldn't tell us. Why give cheaters a heads up?

Scripters won't be dealt with easily. Scripters have found a way around a ton of changes that in the end, only bother non-scripters. Scripters have all the skill and abilities of human beings (probably, because they are human beings).

Bugs come, and bugs go. There are certainly bugs out there that need to be fixed.

I would love to organize things better. BOD books are so useful. I've love to see something similar for jewelry or weapons.

Challenge and fun can come from people. PvP and roleplaying. Player events. if there aren't any pvpers on your shard giving you a challenge, there are better shards for it.

Some of us are having fun. I actually find I have less fun playing UO when I've read these boards prior to playing. There is something about rampant cynicism that is contagious.

No system is 100% exploit proof but no system should be vulnerable to several dupes at the same time (according to Jeremy) either.

When I see Mystic take action months after the first warning sign showed up on a public forum, and there are still many suspicious items sold under day light after the ban, my confidence in their anti-exploit or tracking system has been greatly reduced.

A simple way to fight scripting is to put a cap on the amount rescources can be gathered or the number of times a skill can be used. The cap can be "explained" by "fatigue" after long time of "hardwork." Alternatively, incorperating reasoning and logical thinking into repetitive tasks like mining/lumberjacking/bod filling can sucessfully defeat scripting since a script don't have those abilities unless it is from Dept of Defense.

It is true that challenge and fun can come from players. But aren't those what we are paying for every month? The dev has more resources and is much more influential to achieve that through the new contents.

This is no way a whine but my suggestions that I think dev should focus on. Oh, one mroe thing - make the game easier to play (different from easier to get uber stuff): who in their right mind will add up every mods on their every piece of equipment every time they change?

Round up the numbers on the mods, reduce the number of mods, help player better manage their items.

Stratics Veteran

On dupes, I think the problem is similar to the problem with blood clotting in the human body. Something like three out of four of us will die because of some problem with blood clotting (not clotting when bleeding or hemoraging, clotting at the wrong time with heart attacks and strokes). This one bodily system is vulnerable to several problems at the same time, but these problems are mostly the same problem (blood clotting is a very carefully balanced system that only really works in a small window). Think of the UO database in the same way. The original database code hasn't changed hugely over the course of the game. The fundamental nature of the system is the same; dupes just take advantage of current bugs to exploit this. It is possible to have a blood clot and be bleeding elsewhere at the same time, or have multiple stab wounds, or multiple clots. Multiple groups of players working from different directions will find multiple dupes. We just need the doctors (dev team) to fix the system up a little bit more efficiently.

Capping resources won't work. If it is too low, it will frustrate other players, and scripters will just use more unpaid newbie accounts. Like with the Casca/Melissa thing, people just switched to other characters, shards, or accounts. If it is too high, it won't work either. The logical reasoning thing is also problematic. Unless you have another person at the other end, the system will be beatable eventually. I've seen programs written by unknown programmers play checkers, chess, and other games. I'm betting there is a scripter or fifty good enough to write a script to do the control tower puzzle while peacing or fighting the other swamp spawn, and that's probably one of the neater mini puzzles in game.

What are we paying for? People all have their own answers. Paying to hunt, paying to pvp, paying to keep an extra house, paying for content, paying for bug fixes. The dev has more resources than us, but they also have more responsibilities. Even if they made a new interesting monster a week, some would get bored with it in a day.

Also, we want huge epic storylines, but we expect someone else to do them. I once asked a friend what sort of event he wanted to see in game. He mentioned an epic conflict involving multiple player towns and guilds stretching over the entire world. I said "why don't we plan that?" He then basically said it couldn't be done without OSI/EA. He was wrong. Our shard has organized the Divided Lands a few years prior which was epic, big, and player-run.

I personally don't mind the mod system. I think that any "magic" item system with any flexibility, power, and utility will have a certain amount of complexity. I noticed a certain complexity to the DnD magic item system in the tabletop game for example. Maybe being a veteran of tabletop rpgs makes me better able to wade into the numbers, but I do like having flexibility. I'd hate to see some mods go away, even the ones I haven't really used.

Stratics Veteran

K'torr : "Current development would indicate a lack of interest in improving the game, but rather just making minimal expenditures/efforts to prevent total collapse."

This is as honest and straightforward as it gets, based on what we got right now.

If you're hoping for a true rebirth then you better cross your fingers that Stygian Abyss is everything AOS+SE+ML wasn't..
.....And that KR receives a couple of HUGE updates in the following 2-3 weeks.

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